


The Artist and the Apocalypse

by UrdnotChicken



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Blood Loss, Drug Use, F/M, Healing, Loss, Obsession, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-07-29 21:54:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7701115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UrdnotChicken/pseuds/UrdnotChicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"See you around, killer." It sent chills down her spine to hear it. When she was alone, when she said these things to herself, acknowledged that she was a killer, it sickened her. If anyone else had said this to her, she would have been absolutely horrified, ashamed. So why, when an artistic serial killer said these thing, did it feel like such a compliment?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Accidental Flattery

**Author's Note:**

> Pickman needs more love, you guys. I probably won't update this regularly because I'm a terrible person, but here's hoping.

She'd always been attracted to artists. Before Nate, before the idea of a strong and stoic soldier pervaded her dreams, the tortured artist was what she wanted. She'd dated one her first year of college, and he'd left quite an impression. Something about the dichotomy of a man who was clean-cut in so many respects, someone who was calm and composed to turn towards the canvas and lose any and all pretense of that composure, to attack their work with a mania, with the most deep-set desire to birth their work, their vision. To watch as masculine hands, long, large instruments do the most delicate and bold of works, to unravel the mysteries of their mind and their subjects and translate and transform them so utterly...Yes, she'd always been drawn to artists. She herself had no particular talents when it came to the mediums of paint or sketching, but before the war she had always been an ardent admirer. Her talents lay in dance, in song, in the movement and workings of the body, the constant undulations of the tempo and the melody, the sobbing moans of the orchestra and the chorus drawing out the perfection of movement. Now, in this life, this wasteland, there was little need for fine shoes and clothes, for practiced steps or minuets. This life required the dance of survival, and if it contained any grace, it was purely by accident.  
Perhaps that is why she was so instantly taken in by him.  
Nora had been out in the Commonwealth for six months, before Hancock sent her out to explore the gallery. The previous weeks had seen her clearing a large swath of territory close by, so there was little resistance until she reached the front door. She managed to sneak up on them at first, listen to their conversations. They were afraid of this place. Then they changed the subject to their last big haul, talking about raiding a community of helpless settlers while laughing and passing around the Jet, and she started cutting throats.  
Nora entered the red door, low to the ground as it shut with barely a noise. There were more raiders in the old house, all talking about Pickman. Hancock hadn't mentioned that Pickman was a living person, and she assumed it had just been an old building. They talked about him like he was a monster from a book, and then they noticed her presence, and the fight began.  
After the gunfire ceased, Nora stopped to look around, to see the artist's work without interruptions. Listening to a message to Jack, hearing the artist's serene voice as he cut people to pieces, she should have been horrified. She should have left the building. She knew what this place was, and that's all Hancock had wanted. She could go home and warn everyone away from this building. Instead Nora went through the very obviously ominous hole in the wall, crawling through the lower levels and the cellars, fighting raiders and disarming turrets. She was bruised and bloody by the time she reached the raider called Slab, and without thinking she jumped down onto his back, stabbing her knife into his neck, blood spraying on her face, in her mouth. The others were handled quickly, and then it was just Nora and the well dress predator.  
Suddenly Nora realized how very stupid she'd been. What had possessed her to run through that building and kill so recklessly? The raider's blood was drying on her face, pulling the skin tight like the face masks women used before the war, and it took every ounce of willpower not to claw at it. She was filthy, disheveled, a large gash on her left shoulder leaking blood down her arm, onto her hands, squelching between her fingers. It was from early on, the first raider she'd fought upon entering the gallery, and she was surprised that it hadn't slowed or stopped. Then she started studying Pickman, and she forgot the sting in her shoulder, the ache in her limbs. Everything about Pickman was the antithesis of her at that moment. Clean, well groomed, not a hair out of place nor a drop of blood on his well tended clothes. His expression was mild, almost kind, certainly bemused as to why she helped him.  
"That was close. Thank you." His voice was smooth, not rough like the habitual drinkers, smokers, and chem users that populated the Commonwealth, and when he smiled, he had devastatingly straight, white teeth. "Those people deserved worse than death." She should have felt afraid, should have run out of the place screaming, but instead she was rooted to the spot, staring until she felt his gaze heavy on her, and she remembered herself.  
"W-Why did they want you so badly?" Nora mumbled, inwardly kicking herself for sounding so ridiculous. She'd always been so self assured, never one to stammer in speech, but Pickman didn't seem to notice.  
"They objected to my hobby of collecting their heads. They wanted to extract their pound of flesh. Don't worry, killer. I'll collect mine again soon." The way he talked, he might as well have been describing the weather. He took in the blood on her face, on her arms, the little puddle where she spat it out, "Allow me to repay you." Nora was quick to protest.  
"Please, I-I'd have done it either way. Raiders...they do deserve worse than death." Nora was unsure why those words fell from her lips, why she made sure her words held a sentiment of approval for his actions. To distract herself from this, she traced the curves of his face, the dark shadow of a beard on his chin, his high cheekbones and clear pale eyes. Were they blue? In this lighting she couldn't tell, but she felt desperate to find out. Why? Why was she being so ridiculous? If she'd had the wherewithal to think coherently, she'd have blamed the blood loss, would have blamed the bizarre nature of the day, blamed anything.  
Her attention was drawn to his hands, beautiful, long and slender, the delicate instruments of an artist. In one he held a key which he quickly tossed in her direction. "When you return to the house above, look deep into my painting called "A Picnic for Stanley", and there you may claim your reward." Then he smiled, and turned to walk down one of the ruined tunnels. "See you around, killer."  
She turned and left the place as quickly as she could, suddenly thankful for the blood that stained her skin because it hid all sign of the bizarre blush which spread across her cheeks. After breaching the cool night air on the surface, she made her way back around, entered the building again, and found the painting. Grisly work, just like the rest, but it did reveal a talent that most of the Commonwealth would not have been able to appreciate. Gently settling it against the wall and applying the key to the safe, she found Pickman's gift: a devastatingly sharp blade with a black handle still warm from being clutched in his hand. Underneath was a note, simple as it was, smeared with gore in the shape of a heart.  
_Thanks, killer._  
It made her cringe just to hold it in her hands, to feel the red still sticky and smelling strongly of iron, but she pocketed it all the same. Part of her was screaming to leave, her protesting, throbbing limbs, her aching feet, but she shifted restlessly before removing a canister of water from her pack and cleaning her hands. She shook droplets off her fingers before walking through the gallery, studying each macabre piece of artwork, even reaching out a hesitant hand to one, feeling the brushstrokes on her fingertips before snatching it back abruptly. With a shaky sigh Nora turned and left the gallery, her feet beating a quick path back to Goodneighbor, a path that was blessedly free of raiders and super mutants. She didn’t think about the pain in her shoulder or the stains on her armor. She didn’t try deciding who best would be able to stitch up her wounds. No, she was too busy deriding herself for what really and truly lingered in her mind. Pickman had called her a killer. It sent chills down her spine to hear it. When she was alone, when she said these things to herself, acknowledged that she was a killer, it sickened her. If anyone else had said this to her, she would have been absolutely horrified, ashamed. So why, when an artistic serial killer said these thing, did it feel like such a compliment?


	2. Calling Cards in the Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hope's dead, but she keeps working.

It was months later before she found herself back in that part of old Boston. After her initial encounter with Pickman, Nora found herself avoiding the gallery at all costs for fear of seeing him again. She'd been stomping around the city with Hancock, righting wrongs and killing what needed killing, sneaking her ghoulish, chem-addled friend into Diamond City for the noodles, chasing down Deathclaw nests, and answering every distress beacon that played across her Pip-boy. The two of them had even built a teleport array out in Sanctuary. She'd found her son, found the old man who led the Institute. He was safe, he was content, and he had no real need for her. Oh, he'd asked her to join the cause, to make humanity better than it was by giving up on the surface, but how could she? The synths and ghouls she knew, they weren't defects, they weren't mutants, not to her. They were dear to her, dearer than her own flesh and blood, it seemed, because she kissed Shaun's withered cheek and departed the Institute. She doubted she'd ever return. 

After this harrowing experience, Nora went back to Goodneighbor with Hancock and took more chems than a sane person had any business taking. They danced and sang and screamed, and if she had perhaps even howled at the moon during those two weeks, she didn't give a shit. The only thing she was living for, the one goal she'd kept, had been swallowed up and transformed by the Institute. Lying there on the ancient, dusty mattress, listening to the soft snores of the friend beside her and still tingling from the high of Daytripper, Nora felt her face twitch, felt the skin draw tight as her mouth trembled and eyes burned. A big, fat tear rolled down her cheek, chilling her heated skin, and she wiped it away, the slight grin of inebriation still clinging to her lips despite it all. 

She started leaving in the mornings after that, before Hancock woke from their nights of revelry, to scour the ruins of old Boston. She couldn't explain why she felt the need to get up and move, to scavenge and fight while still doped up from the night before, but no one asked, so it didn't matter anyways. She'd go out before the sun rose, start with the first building on the block and work her way down. Some were inhabited, raiders and gunners galore, but she turned it into a game, seeing how many she could kill before she'd have to duck down for a stimpak or flee the building for a while. More often that she'd like, she came back covered in bruises and raider gore, but since her hauls included tons of caps, scrap, and weapons as well, no one seemed terribly put out about it. She'd fight until just after midday, then return to Goodneighbor once the block was free of scum, sell her things, and sleep until the night revelry began again. In this way she cleared out a substantial area around the town, and caravans were made much safer, so no one ever really bothered her about it. After all, she'd been on her own before Nick and Hancock, fighting her way to Diamond City and Goodneighbor in the first place, so it wasn't like she was incapable. Hancock never asked what her deal was, never imposed at all, just kept passing the Jet, Med-X, and liquor, kept holding her hand when she asked, and kept the hell away when she said she didn't want to talk about it. She couldn't have asked for better companionship.

It was a cold, cloudy day when it happened. Rain and rads pelted her body, and she struggled to make it back to Goodneighbor. She'd been wounded on this latest run, a substantial gash on her right thigh hindering mobility, and it took all her effort to keep from falling in the rubble. It wasn't the first time she'd been hurt out there, but it was the first time she really regretted not bringing some support. She was out of stimpaks, nor did she have anything she'd be willing to risk putting on the cut to try to bind it, as all of her things were filthy beyond reckoning. It was getting darker, the radstorm increasing in severity to the point that she couldn't find her bearings, nor could she make out one street from another. She tried remembering the direction she came from, but in the deepening gloom and increasingly severe downpour, it was hard to see further than a few feet ahead. A deafening roar of thunder and brilliant flash flared to life to her right, and when she turned to look, she tripped over something large and soft. A body. The throat was cut, and after a cursory search, she found it. A note with a dripping heart, and on it the same words she'd seen before. _Pickman was here. Find me if you dare._

Feeling reasonably certain that the building inside was empty of its former residents, Nora eased open the door and crept inside. It was dark, old lanterns penetrating the gloom of the buildings. She slunk into the corner and stood, shivering and listening. It was hard, for her breath was coming fast, her every instinct telling her to shake and chatter her teeth, to attempt to warm herself. Her icy fingers clenched into fists as she silently observed. The room itself was devoid of any living occupants, instead playing host to some half dozen dead bodies. They were still warm, still able to be manipulated. They couldn't have been dead very long, and when she looked, there they were, more calling cards. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end, for though it was deathly quiet, she couldn't help but feel she was being watched. From upstairs an argument sounded, a man and a woman shrieking at each other, talking about who could only be Pickman, but they did not seem to know she was there. 

She took to the stairs, creeping along as quietly as she could, making it to the upper landing without incident. There was a light at the end of the hall, and under it stood a man in leathers and spikes with a stupid post apocalyptic haircut. His knife was at the ready.

"Come out, you cowards!" The man called as Nora removed her gun with shaking fingers. She steadied the sights of her .44 in his direction, bracing an arm against the wall to keep it still, and when the raider looked thoroughly distracted with lighting a cigarette, she fired. Blessedly, the bullet struck true, shattering the raider's skull and splattering brain matter all over the walls around him. Unfortunately, she roused the anger of the other occupants, both of whom stormed out through the half broken door across the hall, heading straight for her. She only had time for one shot before they were on her, and while she'd crippled the woman, the man was unharmed.

"Got ya now, you fucking cunt." He screamed as he ran towards her, a switchblade in his right hand, and before she had a chance to retreat, he was on her. Cut after cut, slice after burning slice, he hacked away, screaming as he did so. "Kill my men, ya little bitch? My men?!" Adrenaline pulsed through her as they fought on the filthy floorboards, her limbs kicking and flailing, hands twitching as they reached for her knife, Pickman's gift to her. Before she made it, before she had a chance to tear out his throat, the raider stabbed his knife into her forearm, ripping a scream from her lips. Blood pulsed out, staining his leathers, coating her fingers. Blood was in her eyes, on her cheeks, sobs ripping from her throat as he twisted the knife. In the struggle she had dislodged his torturous hand, but when he reached to pull out the blade, to take it to her throat, she managed to get her own in him, stabbing him in the side of the neck, watching the light fade from his eyes as surely as it was going to fade from hers. Bright red pulsed from his jugular, filling her mouth as she lay panting. With a shaking hand she reached over, intent to rip the knife from her body. Her fingers wrapped around the hilt, blood squelching against the old leather. From the corner of her eyes she saw the woman, still alive, struggling to crawl towards her. The raider reached down, took out a psycho syringe and stabbed it into her arm. At the same time, 3 more raiders entered from a ladder leading to the roof. Nora struggled in earnest, ripping the knife from her arm with a howl, forcing herself to her feet. Blood slithered down her limbs and pumped out of her arm with each heartbeat, pain pulsing in her joints, and then her knees gave out. What was meant to be a hasty retreat became a tumble down the stairs. Each slam of her body onto her mangled arm drew out another scream, and it seemed that years passed before she reached the bottom. 

The raiders were coming down; she could hear the scuffle of their feet on the ancient stairs. The pounding of their heavy boots roared in her ears, and then she heard nothing but screams, saw nothing but blood in her eyes. If she had heard or seen anything else, it would have been a cheerfully hummed song and the graceful swipe of a knife across throats, followed by the staccato of swift stabs, a dagger in the dark that did not relent until their bodies resembled ground meat. Instead the blood continued to leak from her, and she went unconscious just as a soothing voice started to speak and hands that felt blazing hot on her chill skin started pressing against her wounds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my defense, I'm not great at violence. Not that I'm creeped out by it or anything, I just feel like a total dork trying to write it out.


	3. The Artist/Nursemaid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pickman watched her despite his reluctance. His killer needed a witness, and this time she needed a protector as well.

He'd not meant to watch her, truly. He'd not meant a lot of things that had happened, but happen they had. After she'd crept into his gallery and dispatched Slab with such voracity (and really, it was an act of grace he'd rarely seen before that day, pouncing on her prey like an animal on the hunt, something he wished he could capture on canvas), he'd given her his blade. He watched from within the walls as she inspected his offerings to her, watched the mix of horror and fascination on her face as she ran her own blood-soaked digits over his note. He thought she'd crumple it up and toss it, but instead she folded the paper and pocketed it before taking the knife and doing the same. That was the end of it, or it should have been. She took what she had earned, and he should have turned and left to clear out the tunnels below. Instead he stayed, watched as she walked around, studied painting after painting. Something about the way she examined them spoke of someone who was experienced with art. She started to reach up, but then she took out a can of purified water and poured it on her hands, cleansing herself of the blood that stained them. Pickman watched with his own fascination as the blood tinged water dripped down to the floorboards, watched reddened skin turn white again, watched her dry her hands on an ancient rag from her pack. All that was mundane, but somehow pleasing to see. Afterwards, after peering around and seeming confident she was alone, the killer reached up and touched the canvas. He supposed he should have been horrified. After all, this was his art. Then again, the look of guarded awe on her face was enough to sooth any anger he might have felt. She did the same thing with a few of his other works, after which she shivered and turned to leave, only to stop and turn in exactly his direction. She couldn't see him, of that he was confident, nor could she hear him, but to see her staring directly his way, he felt exposed. A blush lit her face, something barely noticeable under the blood, and then she was gone, walking with a kind of faux ease, just the slightest bit too fast, body a little too relaxed. She was discomfited, and she had good reason.

After that, he had tried to stay away from her, truly. He wouldn't frighten such a sweet little killer as her, someone who did good work scouring the scum from the streets, but he couldn't deny his interest. He wanted to know her, to see her, and it was much easier than he'd anticipated. After a few months without much other than whispers, he saw her in Goodneighbor. Solitary creature that he was, Pickman still found the need to visit settlements from time to time, for even his prey could not provide for his every need. No one knew his face except for her, so he ducked into the nearest alley, disturbing the blazing high drifters half conscious there. He needn't have bothered, for she was oblivious to him, walking arm-in-arm with the ghoulish mayor Hancock, the two of them staggering drunkenly back to the Old State House. She looked different, a bit thinner, though still not rail-thin like the other occupants of the Commonwealth. More than that was her stance, no longer the careful tread of one unsure of their surroundings, but of one who had nothing left. He knew that walk. That was the way the drifters shifted through the streets, the way the raiders lingered when they weren't raping and stealing. There had been a light, bright and fragile and fiercely hot, and it had been extinguished within her. What was left was a cinder of his killer, still beautiful, still deadly, but without hope, like the outlines of people who died in the bombs, their silhouettes forever on the ancient concrete of old Boston buildings. He wished he'd been able to capture it before it was gone.

Still, in the weeks that followed, he saw a side he liked just as much. He saw her at work, witnessed her deeds firsthand. Block by block, street by street, she cleared out the scum that subsisted there, ravaging the raiders with as much zeal as he had ever possessed. Oh, he did his own work; let no one say that Pickman would sit back and allow another, no matter how cold and beautiful, to take away his job, his passion. He would wake before her, go into the city and slay, and then he would drag back those who weren't quite dead, those she had only wounded (of which there were surprisingly few), take them back to his gallery and work. He slaved away with fervor, trying to capture her exactly as her victims saw it, but as much as they sobbed, as much as they screamed and pleaded around their descriptions, it was never the same. He dipped his brush into their blood, smeared their gore across the canvas, but it didn't do her justice. Any work he did was a pale imitation of her fast justice. His gallery was full of unworthy offerings, but it was the best he could do, and he added more daily, image after image. What his captives saw, what his sacrifices to the arts described, was a monstrosity, a fallacy that he could not accept. A bloodthirsty witch that appeared when they slept and slaughtered them all, then feasted on their flesh. No, it wasn't at all the truth, not his killer. Only he saw the truth, a truth that he tried time and again to proclaim to all. A sea of blood, a tide of red and gore and flesh, and at the center, on the only dry land, his killer, touched by crimson but never consumed by it. She was a tragic figure, trying to cleanse the wastes, trying to restore a long lost past of which nothing remained. She was beautiful, and she was broken, but somehow through it all, she was unsullied.

Then the day came when she tried to fight her way through the cold and the storms, wounded though she was already. He had left his calling cards well away from her until that day, but she had been so lost, so alone, and so wounded that he needed her to know that an ally was near. She did not look as relieved as he'd expected, but soon he was clearing the ground floor of the nearest building, the one she was sure to enter. Like so much of Boston (like his gallery in fact), the walls weren't solid, and he went into the left side, struggling to climb the unkempt pathways, stealthily making his way up to the third floor, slicing the throats of the occupants and lowering their gurgling bodies to the floor. Soon, too soon, the blood pooled onto the floorboards, and as beautiful as that sight always was, the raiders below did not find the trickle through the cracks quite so pleasing. They raised the alarm, starting a brawl of which, though he survived by misdirection and speed, his little killer nearly became a victim. A gut wrenching scream filled the house, and Pickman fought in earnest, taking out any who stood between him and his killer, though he was very nearly too late. The cold had seeped into her flesh, her pleasingly pale skin becoming ghostly, her body trembling from the cold and the blood loss.

He'd fled through the streets faster than he could ever recall moving, her limp body wrapped in his coat, staining it irreparably. She had been disoriented in the storm, otherwise he was sure she wouldn't have ended up so much closer to his gallery than Goodneighbor. He rushed her to his rooms, clean and safe and separate from his gallery, and he mended her as best he could, stopping the bleeding with stitches and stims, administering blood packs, Radaway, and Med-X. After what seemed a long time, she seemed to stabilize, and once he knew she was able to stand it, he took to washing the gore from her. Much of the blood was her own, and he found he did not like the look of blood on her nearly as much as he had before. He stripped her of her armor, tossing it into a heap while tending to her with the greatest care. His killer deserved accolades for her work, but since none would appreciate her appropriately, he would do what he could.

Pickman had washed her thoroughly, even her hair, and then he had dressed her in a very large shirt. Her arm was wrapped in gauze, and every few hours he administered more stims and Med-X. He'd patched himself up enough to know she would survive, that all he'd need do was wait.

That had been two days ago, and after he had finished cleaning up her armor and his rooms, Pickman had a great deal of time to study her. His killer was different, not just in manner but in her features. She had good bone structure, good looks, the kind a person might see in prewar magazines and books. The kind of women who sang on old holotapes about lost loves and gloomy Sundays. The kind that came out of those vaults, all pale and smooth, taller because of adequate nutrition their entire life. More than that, she carried herself, even in fighting, differently from a wastelander. There was grace to her, like a dance. He'd tried not to dwell on it at the time, but later he couldn't help remembering her legs, long and smooth, muscular but feminine, with thick thighs that were just fleshy enough to squeeze (or bite). Her hips were wider than a drifter's, wider than his, and soft. All of her was soft and rounded, no matter how much she fought and jogged throughout the Commonwealth. She was a woman straight from a magazine, fleshy and pretty. A woman who dispassionately danced with Death on a daily basis, who offered up others to her partner with glee, and if she offered him up as well, he wasn't sure that he could find the will to struggle against her. Not when she painted such a pretty picture for him. 

He took a hand in his, small, thin, and delicate. The palms had been toughened by necessity, but only recently as far as he could tell. Nails were well manicured, something that women rarely knew how to do in the Commonwealth. Then again, most people were lucky to have all their fingers in the first place. She was a touch frivolous, it seemed.

His old holodeck in the corner changed songs, Gloomy Sunday streaming through the windowless room while Pickman lost himself in the thought of her hands, of showing her the best ways to create art, how to guide pigment across canvas until images bloomed. He imagined them killing together, imagined her flecked with blood (not her own, no, never again her own), posed for him to capture forever in paint, to finally capture that moment, to know her mind and soul in a way the wretched raiders could never comprehend, could never hope to convey to him. So caught up was he in this, that for a few moments he didn't realize his fingers were gradually sweeping the length of her arm, sliding over skin far too smooth and white for this world, and when he looked down and saw this he very nearly pulled away except that he took notice of something he'd perhaps not paid much thought to in the previous days. Tiny bruises, injection sites all along her arm, and all very recent. Some were darkly bruised, some yellowed and fading, but all bearing the same damning evidence of substance abuse. He wasn't shocked at this, not when half the Commonwealth was medicated in some way, but he looked up at her all the same, looked at her unconscious face, now seemingly less at rest than before his revelation. His fingers slid over the marks, and he couldn't help the words that followed. 

"Do you want to die, little killer?" 

He hadn't expected a reply, much less for his murderess to open her eyes and promptly scream in his face.


	4. Fever Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nora's POV of the previous chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I recognize that this is somewhat disjointed and perhaps confusing at points. If so, good. It should be. I was trying to convey a feeling of nostalgia, sorrow, hopelessness, anger, and confusion. I hope it worked.

She knew it wasn't real. It couldn't have been real. That didn't mean she wanted to wake up just yet.

At first there was pain and fear, an explosive, consuming amount of both. As she lay there, bleeding out in the dust and grime, with who-the-fuck-knows fighting in the background, she knew she would be dead soon, and at that time she was frightened. With all the horror, all the trauma the Commonwealth provided day to day, she was surpised fear of death still existed inside of her, but there it was. Her heart was hammering in her chest, her lungs were burning carbon, and her muscles were terrible little threads, useless, shredded things incapable of budging. All of her was thoroughly fucked, and all she could hear was the pathetic thud of her pulse in her ear, of a heart that hadn't heard the news that it was fucking finished.

She lay there for so long, waiting to die, hoping against hope that it would happen soon or not at all, and then something burning hot touched her face. She screamed, or tried, but air barely escaped her chest in the first place. Strong arms scooped her up, and she finally, blessedly lost whatever consciousness remained to her.

_She had just brought Shaun home from the hospital. Nate had been deployed at the time, and she and her own mother were estranged, so it was just Nora and her new little man getting to know one another. She was so afraid, but Shaun had slept well enough for her to get used to it. Then Nate showed up, dusty and worn, so tired but so happy to see them both. He cried, cried like she'd never seen him cry before, kissing Shaun's wrinkled forehead and tiny hands, and she cried too, watching them both. She never wanted it to end. She wrapped her tired arms around his shoulders, looking down at their son, squeezing tighter and tighter as though that would keep him there. He'd end up keeping her up more than Shaun, waking in cold sweats and screaming, reaching for a weapon that didn't exist. He'd apologize, offer to sleep on the couch, but Nora would just smile and kiss him before walking into darkened hallway, intent on going to soothe Shaun._

_The world shifted, and the room grew larger, filled with people in fancy clothes. Music, old songs that she hadn't heard since--well--, filtered through a bar made hazy by countless smokers, herself included. Snooty drinks in expensive crystal, where everyone went late at night to pretend that they had really "made it" in life, whatever that meant. A man was sitting at the piano, playing with virtuosity as a woman crooned along. People went in and out of focus, a dizzying fever dream, but she thought perhaps she'd had too much to drink. Nora covered her face with her hands for a moment, trying to clear her head._

_Her face was pressed against his chest. She'd always loved dancing with a man taller than herself, one tall enough to lay her ear against their heart, to hear the slow, steady rhythm of their pulse alongside the music. His chest was broad, and his arms were strong, and she wanted to speak, wanted to say something important, something vital. Instead she closed her eyes and kissed him, and she felt a smile on his lips when he returned it. The song was sad as they swayed, as his hands, long and lean, slipped to her waist and pulled her lasciviously close. Billie Holiday and her "Gloomy Sunday", but Nora didn't care about black coaches of sorrow or white flowers, only his lips on her neck, one hand tangling in her hair, tugging her head back while the other caressed the inside of her arm, sending tremors down her spine, sending arousal straight to her core at the same time that dread hit her belly. The hand in her hair loosened, gentled, cupped her chin and raised it up until she was looking into his eyes, and damn, she couldn't tell if they were grey or blue, but she'd give anything to know. She leaned closer, but the room was dark. His breath was heavy against her wet mouth, and she dove forward, intent of capturing his lips with her, with taking back this moment, and why was he looking at her like that?! She closed her eyes and kissed him, and then he was at her throat, kissing and biting and licking, tearing moans from her vocal chords with practiced ease before he stopped, breath heavy against her wet flesh. She mewled and begged and cajoled, but he wouldn't budge, instead going back to stroking her arm, thumb sliding over one spot, and dread pooled cold in her gut. Billie was going on and on in the background, but she heard him well enough._

_"_ _Do you want to die, little killer?"_

_I_ _t all came back. All of it. The bombs, the blood, the gore and death and Nate and Shaun. The fucking Institute and the fucking Brotherhood of Steel, drug addicted ghoul mayors who cosplay as one of the Founding Fathers, Kellogg....murdering Nate just to steal Shaun away. Why? Why was she still here? Why wasn't she dead? And Shaun...Shaun...She didn't want to wake up. Why had she been afraid to die before? What was the point? The real horror was living, after all. Dying was relief. "Do you want to die, little killer?" So she gave the only possible answer._

_"_ _More than anything in this world." Only, she was alone. Always alone._

She screamed.

She was alive. She'd never felt more disappointed.


End file.
